Problem
Build a robotic pellet-deposition system from CAM path to material extrusion.
An integrated robotic deposition system: CAM postprocessor, a slide added as the seventh axis, a pellet extruder designed and built by Moxá, and a proprietary bridge connected to the KUKA controller’s CANopen X44 port.
Project developed for a client in the manufacturing sector · Domain: industrial robotics / additive manufacturing · Confidential details anonymised.
Build a robotic pellet-deposition system from CAM path to material extrusion.
Coordinate the six-axis robot, the added slide as a seventh axis, tool orientation and pellet extrusion.
CAM-to-KRL postprocessor and a proprietary bridge connected to CANopen X44 on the KUKA controller, managing both slide and extruder.
KUKA KRC5, KRL, CAMAPI, seventh-axis slide, pellet extruder and proprietary CANopen X44 bridge.
A system combining the robot, the added slide and the pellet extruder designed and built by Moxá, with slide and extruder managed through the proprietary bridge.
Bring CAM software, robotics, mechanical construction, pellet extrusion and control electronics together in one project.
We added a slide as the seventh axis to the six-axis KUKA robot. It is part of the integrated deposition system and is managed through the proprietary bridge.
We designed and built the pellet extruder as part of this project, integrating it with the robot and slide.
The bridge connects to the KUKA controller’s CANopen X44 port and manages both the slide and pellet extruder.
Slicing software for 3D printing generates G-code for 3-axis Cartesian machines: a head that moves in X-Y-Z. A 6-axis robot does not run G-code and reasons in a completely different way — in terms of joints and poses in space.
The robot can reach the same point with infinite joint configurations. You need rules to choose the right one along the whole path, keeping the tool correctly oriented with respect to the surface.
Material deposition must start, stop and modulate its flow rate in sync with the motion: if the robot accelerates and the extruder doesn't (or vice versa), the result is unusable.
Certain poses send the robot into a singularity (loss of controllability) or outside the reachable volume. On a path of thousands of points, these must be anticipated and avoided beforehand, not discovered with the machine at a standstill.
We developed a custom postprocessor that takes the tool path generated by the CAM and turns it into a KRL program ready for the KUKA KRC5 controller. Not a mechanical point-by-point conversion: the postprocessor reasons about the robot's motion.
The postprocessor manages tool orientation and path constraints. The added slide and pellet extruder are managed through a proprietary bridge connected to the KUKA controller’s CANopen X44 port.
A postprocessor that generates structured, readable KRL code, parametric on the process data (speed, orientation, flow rate).
Slide and pellet extruder managed through the proprietary bridge connected to CANopen X44 on the KUKA controller.
Checks on singularities, joint limits and work volume applied upstream, over the entire path, before execution.
A system combining the robot, the added slide and the pellet extruder designed and built by Moxá, with slide and extruder managed through the proprietary bridge.
A slicer generates G-code for 3-axis Cartesian machines. A 6-axis robot does not run G-code and has extra degrees of freedom to manage: tool orientation, choice of joint configuration, singularities. You need a postprocessor that translates the path into robot language (KRL) while taking all of this into account.
It is the component that translates the tool path computed by the CAM software into the specific language of the machine that will execute it — in our case KRL for the KUKA controller. This is where speeds, orientations, process I/O and the machine's constraints are handled.
The approach — custom postprocessor, process synchronisation, handling of the robot's constraints — applies to many processes: material deposition, thermal cutting, milling, dispensing. The process changes, the principle doesn't.
Yes. In this project we added a slide as the seventh axis and designed and built the pellet extruder. A proprietary bridge connected to the KUKA controller’s CANopen X44 port manages both the slide and extruder.
Custom CAM postprocessors, end-effector integration, robotised cells for non-conventional processes: if you have a robot to turn into a production machine, let's talk. The initial discovery is free.
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